Aimée de Jongh (1988, the Netherlands) graduated in 2011 at the Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam, with a Bachelor of Arts in animation. Although she had worked professionally as an illustrator and comic artist from the age of 17, she discovered the world of animated film during her education in Rotterdam. The possibilities of film intrigued her. During the years she developed a passion for the art of hand drawn animation, in which she would draw every frame of her films. This resulted in her first short film “Zoom” at the Royal Academy of Arts in Ghent, Belgium, where she took classes during the final semester. After an internship at the studio of prizewinning animator Hisko Hulsing, de Jongh started her graduation film “One Past Two”, for which she took part in every element of the process: storyboards, audio, animation, painting the backgrounds and even directing the voice-actors. The film was a success, screening at many international film festivals. “One Past Two” sums up the key elements to De Jongh’s films and works in general: hope, life, the threatening of death and the beauty of conversations between people.

After her graduation, de Jongh got a fund from the Netherlands Film Fund to direct a 2-minute film, “Aurora”, which would screen in 71 cinemas across the Netherlands in the following year. In the spring of 2014, de Jongh worked on her first video installation together with L.A. artist Miljohn Ruperto: “Janus”, which screened at the Whitney Biennial 2014 in New York. The project was an experimental animation about a dying animal that looks like a duck and a rabbit at the same time. Although animated film and video are her main interests now, her love for comics never stopped. In 2012, de Jongh began her daily comic strip “Snippers” for the Dutch newspaper Metro and still works for them today. This year, de Jongh has been working on her first graphic novel, “The return of the Honey Buzzard”, which will be released in October 2014.